Duke administrators announced a number of new cost-cutting measures and a sweeping review of administrative efficiency amid intensifying federal funding threats in a Thursday afternoon email to all University faculty and staff.
Upcoming spending adjustments include suspending capital spending, freezing staff hiring and salary mid-year adjustments, reviewing all faculty hiring practices and slowing all non-compensation spending. The administrators added that these immediate steps will be followed by additional measures as leaders develop “cost-reduction proposals” across the rest of the University.
The announcement comes roughly an hour after an email from President Vincent Price notified the Duke community of plans “to identify measures that may be needed to ensure Duke’s operational and financial health for the long term.”
In addition to the five outlined actions, the leadership team will also review other University programs, including administrative operations such as off-campus real estate, on-campus space consolidation and employee benefit programs, as well as plans to increase University funding.
According to the follow-up email from Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis, Provost Alec Gallimore and Mary Klotman, executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine — who have been tasked with leading the process alongside Craig Albanese, chief executive officer of the Duke University Health System — the spending changes come as Duke is “already experiencing funding impacts.”
The email clarified that critical and pending efforts, including essential renovations, student work study recipients, critical faculty hires and approved exceptions, will not be impacted by these cuts.
Ennis, Gallimore and Klotman characterized the timeline for the work as “ambitious,” adding that University leadership aims to provide the Board of Trustees with an update on their progress in May.
The University declined to comment further on the announcement or provide an expected timeline for the new cost-cutting initiatives. Administrators also declined to comment on whether the new “Made for This” fundraising campaign or aspects of the student experience — such as enrollment numbers and financial aid offerings — will be affected, or on whether a faculty hiring freeze may be implemented in addition to the pause in staff hiring.
This effort to “slow the rate of University expenditures” follows a number of threats from the Trump administration on National Institutes of Health grant funding, which, pending legal review, could impact Duke by an estimated $194 million.
The administrators wrote that other federal threats may put the University at risk of losing another roughly $500 million through direct cuts to “deprioritized areas of research,” disruptions to the grant-review process, an increase in the endowment tax, changes to financial aid funding and reductions to government-funded health care programs, such as Medicaid.
During Arts & Sciences Council’s March 6 meeting, Ennis noted that potential reductions to Medicaid are a threat to Duke’s School of Medicine, which relies on those funds to “support its teaching and research mission.”
He also mentioned that Duke faces threats to its $140 million in funding from the Department of Education, which supports Duke’s graduate and professional students, and roughly $8 to $10 million it receives in the form of federal Pell Grants.
Duke recently launched its “Made for This” comprehensive fundraising campaign, aimed at developing four main pillars across the University: Duke Sciences and Technology, the Duke Climate Commitment, the undergraduate student experience and Duke Health.
In a Feb. 23 interview with The Chronicle, Price noted that the majority of the campaign’s funds aim to create new professorships, expand financial aid for students and offer programmatic activities to enable students, faculty and staff to do their “very best work.”
Although Price said during the interview that he remained optimistic that “the campaign is perfectly timed to address these needs,” it is not yet clear how the campaign’s goals will be impacted by the proposed changes to University spending, as the original plan included a number of capital developments projects.
“I understand that you likely will have questions about what this may mean for the University and for you individually, and that the uncertainty involved with the changes affecting colleges and universities nationwide, including Duke, may be stressful,” Price wrote in a Thursday email. “We are committed to moving this planning response forward in a thoughtful, holistic and expeditious manner and will provide opportunities for you to ask questions and offer input and feedback.”
The announcement follows similar statements from a number of universities across the country, including Brown University, Emory University and the University of Notre Dame, who have instituted staff hiring freezes amid uncertainty in federal funding practices. Harvard University announced that it would be implementing both staff and faculty hiring freezes.
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Abby Spiller is a Trinity junior and analytics editor of the audience engagement team of The Chronicle's 121st volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 120.